My review of XTEP 2000 KM 3.0

Writing this review to serve as a marker for my first run in this shoes.

For the longest time, my go to brand for running shoes has always been tried and tested Asics, which has served me well for my marathons, half marathons and other races.

Recently I bought a pair of XTEP 2000 KM 3.0 to try out as my current Asics Cumulus is wearing out.

I have heard good reviews about chinese brand running shoes recently and after doing my own research, I narrowed down to this brand and model.

I believe this is their basic model. 

I bought it from their official store in Shopee during 9/9 sale and it costs me $60.46 after vouchers and discounts. At such price point for such quality, there's really nothing much to complain about. 

So today I finally brought it out for some trial runs.

I'm still feeling the burn in my hamstrings and glutes from yesterday's leg day so I only managed to do some slow runs to get a feel. I'm also still in my gym attire from this morning - tee and cotton shorts, not the best attire for a run. Lol.

Anyway I tried it out on both the PCN and roadside. After that I also did some intervals on the PCN.

First impression upon wearing the shoes is they are light. Noticeably lighter than my current Cumulus. 

The shoes provided the stability during the run. Friction is also good.

Didn't really feel the touted rebound though. 

Need to try it out for a long run and wet surface soon.

Would also be interesting to see how long it can last. 

In summary, would I recommend buying this pair of shoes? Definitely, be it for your only pair of running shoes or as a second pair for alternate wearing. 

At such price point, I think it's hard to find another brand with equivalent specifications. Other chinese brands maybe? 

Performance-wise, I'm pretty sure this pair can help me run faster if I have rested enough. 

Design-wise, I feel this is one of their biggest plus points. I love the design and colour scheme. Although my first choice colour was Moonstone Blue which ran out of stock, I am satisfied with this pair too. 

I'm wearing size 46 for my Asics and I bought size 45 for my XTEP. It fits perfectly.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with XTEP except for being a satisfied customer (so far).

P.s. Having said that, I don't mind a collaborative post too if you feel we can be a good fit (no pun intended). 

Shout out to @XTEP! 

August 2025 Updates

For the month of August, I bought MIT @ $1.99 and Comfortdelgro @ $1.47.

The former is a continuing accumulation to build up my existing position when price dips. With this addition, MIT now occupies 8.75% of the portfolio based on market value.

The latter is a reentry since I sold it 8 years ago. Bought it post XD as the price felt comfortable for a first tranche, dividend yield has become attractive and business fundamentals & outlook are improving.

This month also seen dividends received from

OCBC @ $476.42

DBS @ $495

SingTel @ $800

Total: $1,771.42

Looking forward to next month's dividends. 

Local portfolio value and P&L excluding dividends:

I also transferred $19,999 to DBS fixed deposit with 2.45% interest.

Had a rather unpleasant experience at Punggol Coast Mall Fairprice Finest with my family yesterday.

We were at the 2nd floor doing our shopping and an auntie promoter at the 'Europe' shelving offered my 5 year old a sample.

My son declined as he will always ask me or my wife for permission before accepting things from strangers. 

What irks me is that I heard the promoter told my son to stop looking if he does not want the sample.

After that my son came back to me and I squatted down to ask him what did the promoter said to him. From the corner of my eye I saw the promoter crept up and hid behind one of the shelves near us to eavesdrop on our conversation.

When my son told me the exact words that I heard earlier, I had wanted to go to confront the promoter but my two kids stopped me, saying they are afraid I would be taken away by the police. That gave me a chuckle.

Nevertheless I happened to see the Fairprice store manager and feedback to her about the incident.

Her empathy, professionalism and prompt action are exemplary and show why she deserves to be a manager.

Two ladies, two poles apart in behaviour. 

Anyway writing this to let off some steam.

Thanks for reading. 

June 2025 Updates

Received dividends from Netlink NBN Trust, Mapletree Industrial Trust, Mapletree Logistics Trust and Ascendas Reit.

NLT: $281.40

MIT: $268.80

MLT: $318.67

AReit: $894.11

Didn't make any trade this month. 

June also seen the start of the slow down in my side line as more and more clients go on their summer break. 

Every year June to August is like that since majority of my clients is ang moh.

Nevertheless it's not a bad thing as I was rather occupied with my environmental management business which is my main work. 

Coming July which is officially the 2nd half of the year, hopefully there will be buying opportunity soon.

Current amount available for investment (excluding main warchest): $5,155.00.

Portfolio value at point of writing: $210,704.37.

 

Edit: Added Ascendas Reit dividends which came in after the original post.

May 2025 Updates

For the month of May, received dividends from OCBC ($662.34), Venture ($250) and DBS ($495). Total dividends amounted to S$1,407.34.

 

Also added MIT @ $1.93 to my existing holding.

Discretionary income from side hustle and dividends increased month-on-month. Rifle loaded, pending targets to pop up for firing.

 

Portfolio value currently stands at $205,719.98.

 

Cash-wise, currently holding high amount (probably highest in recent times) due to uncertainties in the macro environment.

March 2025 Updates

First dividend season of the year. Received dividends from the following: 

1) Ascendas REIT

2) Mapletree Logistics Trust

3) Mapletree Industrial Trust

4) CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust

5) CapitaLand China Trust

 

Total dividends received for this 1st quarter amounted to S$2,258.04.

 

Pretty satisfied as this is slightly higher YoY. Figure for same quarter last year is S$2,003.27.

 

Per usual practice, all dividends + 50% of my side income are invested back to the portfolio for compounding: the 8th wonder of the world.

 

This month I've added OCBC @ $16.57 and Venture @ $12.45 to my existing positions.

 

The OCBC purchase comes with a 5.1% dividend yield excluding special dividend.  The group has released a pretty solid FY24 with a 8% increase in net profit and EPS. Final dividend was reduced by $0.01 YoY while CEO Helen's pay when up instead. Not much to complain anyway, just an observation on my part.

The Venture purchase comes with a 6% dividend yield. This was done partly to average down, partly to reduce my REITs concentration and partly as a recovery bet in the company. Their recent results haven't been very encouraging although they are maintaining their dividend amount and they are consistently generating positive free cash flow. Hence I am keeping this counter to a small portion of my portfolio. In fact this is the smallest position at 3.2%.

Interesting bit, after I made the Venture purchase, another counter which I have been eyeing actually fell to my TP. Alas I have already expended my bullets this month so guess this has to wait. If another opportunity arises in April this will probably take precedent. Let's see.

Another important news is regarding OCBC 360 Account. There will be a revision to the interest rates on 1st May 2025. Based on the revised terms, I can probably earn 2.65 - 3.85%. Not fantastic but not too shabby either. Moving forward this will probably be the trend across the banking sector so I won't be in a hurry to move funds around yet.

Revised terms from 1st May 2025 onwards:

 

Feb 2025 Updates

February flew by just like that. Did not make any trade this month as there is no incoming dividends and income from my side hustle only came in today.

Probably will add into Venture or another counter next week depending on the price movements. 

As usual, 25% of my side hustle income goes to my SA top up which I just did. 

Another 25% for discretionary spending and balanced 50% for investment.

Unless there is a compelling buy that requires bigger amount to execute (e.g. position sizing purpose, good DCA opportunity, etc), my monthly investment funds will only come from the side income and dividends reinvestment.

This strategy has been working for me so far and will continue to be employed moving forward. On this front, projected amount to be invested this year should be around S$22,000, not including any ad hoc investment amount from my main fund.

Recent financial results released by the companies in my local portfolio have been generally good. I like what I see from SingTel, DBS and OCBC. However I was perplexed and slightly disappointed by the latter's cut in ordinary dividend.

A drop in ordinary dividend is never a good thing and the negativity surrounding it can barely be masked by the declaration of the special dividend. At least this is the feeling that I have.

I rather they hand out the same ordinary dividend and proportionate the special dividend accordingly.

Anyway I look forward to March which should be a bumper month of dividends incoming.

Have a great weekend everyone. 

Jan 2025 Investment Update

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

3rd day of the new year and it seems like most are not back to work yet. Traffic is smooth throughout the day. For me, I have resumed my work, albeit in a slower manner.

Just to do a quick update for my recent investments which can basically be summed up in the following sentences:

Buy what, what drop. 

Sell what, what rise. 

1) BABA

I cut loss for this counter at 84.78 at the end of last year partly due to their drastic price cutting of Qwen. Have briefly talked about this here.

Then on the first day of CNY they released a new version of Qwen (Qwen 2.5-Max) which supposedly surpasses DeepSeek-V3, GPT-4o and Llama-3.1 in performance.

Share price immediately shot up. At this point of writing, BABA is trading at 101.92 pre-market.

What a difference a month makes. 

2) NVDA

Added this counter at 137.80 one week before CNY. Seeing some decent profits in the first two days.

On the third day, DeepSeek was released. NVDA share price went south. As of now it is still recovering from the twin pressures of Qwen and DeepSeek.

Talk about timing again. 

3) MIT

Added MIT at 2.19 on 24th Jan. Three days later unit price went south. Probably due to worries to their DC assets from DeepSeek release.

4) Venture

Around two weeks ago I identified five stocks as potential investment to reduce my REITs concentration. Subsequently after delving into the respective AR and latest business updates I whittled it down to 2 stocks of which Venture is one of them. 

The company has been doing share buyback recently at 12.98, 12.93, 12.95, 12.56, 12.66 and 12.81.

This caught my notice and I decided to pay closer attention to the price movement. At one point it went below 12.60 but I missed the opportunity. It shot up after that and I decided to add MIT instead (as above).

Subsequently the price dropped below 12.70 earlier this week and I added some  at 12.68 on 27th Jan. I feel this compares well and comfortably against the prices added upon by the company. If they feel those are fair values for them, this leaves me with sufficient margin of safety as well. 

5) In General

I have identified Venture and another counter to diversify away from REITs. However I ventured into Venture first partly because the share price of the other counter is stubbornly resolute and refused to drop to my TP.

Nevertheless I will continue to monitor both and prepare to add when opportunities arise.

Recently Powell has sung a different tune to Trump's order to reduce rates further. The latest signal from Fed was to hold the rates at status quo for now.

This prompted a big rise in the share price of local banks and drop in the price of local-listed REITs in general.

Overall effect on my portfolio is still a net positive. 

Local portfolio value stands at S$182,776.40

Some thoughts that came into mind with the present market situation. 

1. Should I take profit off my DBS and OCBC? The capital gains now are roughly equivalent to 16 to 20 years of dividends. This is an age old question that has come to haunt me again.

2. If the current unit prices of the local-listed REITs are the fair values assigned by the market in this climate of 4.25 to 4.50% interest rates, then these price points could form the basis of my TPs (+/-) moving forward.

Last but not least, Heng Ong Huat Ah!